


A Promising Career in Espionage

by rsadelle



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Case Fic, Espionage, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 21:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13221663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: The Double Ohs each have their own Q. Christopher is Bond's.





	A Promising Career in Espionage

"Terribly unfair," Bond says over the comms.

In one panel of the wall of screens, Bond's image lifts the champagne glass he'd been using as a shield for the comment.

Christopher unmutes their end of the connection. "I'm sure your life will afford you other opportunities for threesomes. Do stop talking to us and go mingle." Christopher mutes their end again.

"Yours sleeps with anything that moves too?" Sanjay asks.

"Every woman who crosses his path," Christopher says with a sigh. There's a laptop on the table next to him. He's idly poking at some code while they wait for the target to show, and barely registers the momentary pause.

"Only women?" Ricky asks.

Christopher looks up to see Ricky and Sanjay both studying him. He's not sure what it means, and then something catches their eye on the screens.

"Heads up," Ricky says, unmuting their end of the connection to all three agents. "Helen just walked in."

With a few touches, Christopher changes the configuration of images on the screens in front of them, making the panels showing the agents smaller and putting the one showing the target at the center. They can still clearly see Bond giving a charming smile to a woman who's of no consequence to the mission.

"What is he doing?" Sanjay asks.

"I have no bloody idea." Christopher unmutes the connection to Bond. "If you're going to seduce someone, make sure it's the target."

Bond unerringly throws a disdainful look straight into one of the cameras.

"I hope yours are better behaved," Christopher mutters.

"Pardon me." On the screen, Sheryl's wrist dips with the unsteady weight of her champagne flute as she takes a step away from Helen. "I'm so sorry. How very clumsy of me. Oh, your necklace is just exquisite."

Helen puts her hand on the pendant. "Thank you." Both Julian and Sheryl's mics pick it up, sending it through to the control room in stereo.

"You'll have to excuse her," Julian says smoothly, his arm sliding around Sheryl's waist. "I think she's had just a tad more champagne than was strictly wise."

"But, darling, it's a party," Sheryl protests. "And, look, I've made a new friend!" The smile she gives Helen is part drunken delight and part pure appreciation.

"The woman should be on the West End," Sanjay says. "You should see her when she's really drunk. She gets all weepy. It's terrible."

"You go drinking with yours?" Christopher asks.

"You don't?"

"I think I'd die of alcohol poisoning in the first hour."

On the screens, as if to prove Christopher's point, Bond tosses back his glass of champagne and grabs two more - one for himself, one for the woman he's seducing - from a passing waiter.

Christopher removes Bond's audio feed from the room, leaving it only on his team's earpieces, so everyone else can focus in on Sheryl and Julian's conversation with the target. He eyes the woman with Bond, pulls up two other camera angles, and sends it through facial recognition. She's most likely some sort of bored socialite, but it can never hurt to check, especially given Bond's usual taste in women.

He has the facial recognition set to crosscheck with known party invitees first, and then cast a wider net. The woman Bond's well on his way to seducing comes up on the guest list: Lina Moreau, accompanying her husband.

Christopher snaps his fingers at his team. "Get me everything you can on the Moreaus." He has a basic overview on his screen, but this was a quickly put together mission and they couldn't vet every attendee closely before sending the agents into the field.

Christopher digs deep, keeping one ear on Bond's flirting, and leaves his team to pull up the easier stuff, like Facebook pages and bank accounts. They throw them onto screens for Christopher to see as they find them, and Christopher adds what he can find to it. It adds up to a completely average wealthy French family.

Christopher glances at the largest screen - Julian and Sheryl seem to have their seduction of the target well in hand - and keeps digging.

"Perhaps we should go somewhere a little more private," Lina says throatily, soft but not so soft Bond's mic doesn't pick it up. "Do you have a room?"

"Of course." Bond offers her his arm.

Christopher gestures at his team. "Raj, keep them on screen. Melanie, the Moreaus' associates, see if there's anything there."

"I'd bet not," Ricky says. "If he's anything like mine, he only picked her because she's beautiful."

"And married," Christopher says. "He likes married ones. No commitment. But sometimes they try to kill him, or lead him to men who do. Can't be too careful." They're not coming up with anything yet, but there's something about the Moreaus that's just a little too perfect.

The screen on the wall switches to one of their cameras inside Bond's room. "Won't your husband miss you?"

Lina makes a dismissive noise. "My husband doesn't care what I do. He only pays attention to his business."

"I can't imagine not paying attention to you," Bond says. The camera angle gives them a good view of Lina's head tipping back as Bond kisses her neck.

"We're only here because of his work. I heard him say he had to come because The Trojan is going to be here."

Bond throws a smug look right at one of the cameras.

Christopher brings Bond's audio feed back into the room and mutters, "Yes, yes, you're very clever."

"The Trojan?" Bond murmurs against Lina's neck.

"I don't know who he is," Lina says. "But my husband is here to meet with him. He thinks I don't know that. He thinks I don't know anything about his business." Lina pulls Bond's head down to murmur against his cheek. "But I do."

Christopher sends Bond's comms back to his team's earpieces only.

"Heads up." Sanjay says. "There's a Pierre Moreau at the party expecting to meet with Helen."

On the largest screen, Julian inclines his head the slightest bit to acknowledge them without letting Helen see that he's done so.

Raj puts the video feeds from Bond's hotel room on a smaller screen as clothes begin to come off, and Christopher fills in the space with what they've been able to find on the Moreaus so far. It's not enough.

Christopher fires off official requests to an alphabet soup of French intelligence directorates, and then dives into less official means of finding out what they know.

It's frustratingly little. Pierre Moreau is either new to the criminal business or extremely good at concealment. He keeps digging, all through Bond's encounter with Lina, keeping the slightest bit of his attention on the audio feed, just in case. He pays more attention to it in the afterglow, when Bond trails his fingers over Lina's skin and conducts a skillfully subtle interrogation about her husband's business.

She doesn't know much, spills a few names among her complaints about being neglected, mentions secret bank accounts she's not supposed to know about. Christopher sets his team to looking into what she does know, and turns his attention back to digging deeper into the Moreau's finances when the tone of Bond's attentions toward Lina turns from investigative to amorous.

Julian and Sheryl have also succeeded in joining Helen in a hotel room - hers, not theirs, so there's no video to go with it - leaving Ricky and Sanjay less immediately occupied.

Sanjay looks over what Christopher's team has up on the screens. "Anything useful?"

"Not yet," Christopher admits. "Moreau's a ghost."

"Is he going for it again?" Ricky asks. "Are you sending 007 off with little blue pills on his missions?"

Christopher glances at the screen where Bond is, indeed, going for it again. "No, that's all him."

Bond doesn't get anything else out of Lina, other than the sex. He escorts her back to the party, throws a wink at a nearby camera, and melts into the crowd.

Christopher sighs at his antics and assigns Melanie to keep an eye on him while he puts all of his focus into following the trail of the Moreau's finances.

*

Christopher takes a seat at the conference table. He's only carrying a tablet and a mug of tea, so it doesn't take as much juggling as his colleagues bringing in prototypes or pen and paper. The other quartermasters are still trickling in.

Ricky plops down into a seat across from him and says, to everyone who's arrived, "Did you know Seven sleeps with only women on missions?"

The slight hum of people arriving settles down into all attention focused on Ricky and Christopher.

"Really?" Tim asks. "I didn't know that was allowed."

Christopher didn't know it was unusual. He sips his tea with studied unconcern.

"Certainly not true of mine," Sanjay says.

"How do you think he gets away with it?" Nicola asks. "I mean, we all know he's even more of a rule-breaker than the rest of them, but M really lets him get away with that?"

"It's not unprecedented." Carol takes a seat halfway down the table from Christopher and nods at him. "Six too."

M and Tanner enter the room before anyone can do more than look at her in surprise. Christopher suspects her of planning it.

"Full agenda today," M says. "Let's get right to it. Gillian, you have something for us to look at."

They go through the presentations of prototypes that may be useful in the field or have already proved so before M asks for updates on missions and intel.

When it's Christopher's turn, he connects his tablet with the room's screen and brings up everything they found, or didn't find, about the Moreaus.

"And you're sure they're involved?" M asks.

"There's no way of knowing how far," Christopher says, "but 007 went straight for her. His instincts are good. We're still investigating the names Lina Moreau gave him."

"We'll want to follow up," M says. "Tanner?"

"We do have an agent in the field in that area," Tanner confirms. "Already undercover, we could probably get him on the inside."

M nods. "Do that." To Christopher he says, "Keep your team on the Moreaus. If they're involved, I want them taken care of."

"Yes, sir."

Christopher nearly forgets the conversation at the beginning of the meeting when they're dismissed to keep working.

*

Christopher rubs his eyes while he waits for the kettle to boil. He could have sent one of his team to make him tea, but he needed the break. He's hoping that walking away from his desk will jostle something loose in his brain.

"Christopher." Carol never looks anything but composed, even when it's the middle of the night shift. "Taking a break?"

Christopher gestures at the kettle. "Needed some tea. Still on shift?"

"Yes." Carol takes a mug down from the cupboard and chooses tea to go with it, then leans her hip against the counter while she joins him in waiting for the kettle. "Six is out on a mission. My team should be able to cover it for a few minutes." She has an earpiece in, so she'll know if they can't.

Christopher doesn't know Carol well - Bond hasn't had occasion to go on a mission with Six since Christopher became Bond's quartermaster - but she seems approachable enough.

"Is it really unusual? That they only seduce women," Christopher clarifies.

"It is," Carol confirms. "MI6 expects its agents to be versatile and able to take on any mission."

Christopher gestures her to take first crack at the kettle.

She smiles and pours water into her cup. "Of course, Alec and James have always defied both convention and orders when it suits their purposes."

Christopher takes the kettle from her with a considering hum. "That's been my experience with Bond."

"You'll get used to it," Carol says. "Or you'll get fed up and find some way to kill him."

Christopher laughs. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

It's only later, as he's combing through a tangle of shell companies that he realizes one of the things she told him was that Bond and Trevelyan have reasons for only sleeping with women on missions.

*

What's supposed to be a simple mission for Trevelyan turns into a mess that Bond - who claims to have been conveniently on holiday in the area but knows too much about Trevelyan's assignment to be believed - steps in to help clean up.

"Whatever happened to Double Ohs working alone?" Christopher mutters.

"Sometimes you just have to treat the two of them as one unit," Carol says to him before switching to their shared channel. "Alec, James, we're going to guide you from here while Christopher covers your tracks. No running off, and stay to our pace."

They do as told, for the most part, which gets them out of the building without setting off any alarms.

"Injuries?" Carol asks. They don't have visual, but Trevelyan sounds a bit more out of breath than he should.

"Minimal," Bond says. "Are we clear to get to the airport?"

"Tickets under your usual aliases," Christopher confirms.

Their teams stay in place until Bond and Trevelyan are confirmed to be on the plane and in the air, and then Christopher and Carol dismiss them to breaks and other assignments. Bond and Trevelyan ended up in Amsterdam, which is a short flight that means Christopher and Carol will stay on site until they report in.

Christopher spends most of that time in his office, alternating between reading reports from his staff and spurts of coding.

He's taking a break to make a fresh cup of tea when Bond and Trevelyan arrive. They find him in the break room, and Christopher can tell at a glance that "minimal" was a distinct understatement.

"I don't suppose there's any hope you'll go to Medical."

"No need," Bond says. "You're quite capable of dealing with it. Alec first." He helps Trevelyan sit on the break room table.

Well, this is why they have medical training, multiple break rooms, and extensive first aid kits stashed everywhere there's space for them.

"I can get Carol if you'd prefer," he says to Trevelyan.

"No need," Trevelyan says, with only the slightest hint of strain around his eyes. "If James trusts you, I trust you."

Christopher lays a kit out on the table, then thoroughly washes his hands. When he turns from the sink, Trevelyan's shirt is off, and Bond is peeling a bandage off a nasty cut across his ribs.

"Knife?" Christopher asks.

"Yes," Trevelyan answers.

"I cleaned and bandaged it before we got on the plane," Bond says. "It needs stitches."

Christopher pulls on gloves, cleans it again, and sets to putting in careful stitches to hold it closed.

Trevelyan keeps his head turned away.

"You should watch," Bond says. "He's very good with his hands."

It's a terrible time for a come-on, and yet Christopher is in no way surprised when Trevelyan's answer is, "I'll watch when it's your turn."

"I'm sure his hands will look lovely on me," Bond says.

Christopher ignores the flirting in favor of making neat, even stitches.

The door to the break room swings open.

"There you are," Carol says. She has a tablet. "Ready to report in?"

She walks Bond and Trevelyan through their report on their mission with pointed questions as she enters what needs to be entered into the official report. She catches everything Christopher would ask about, so he focuses on finishing Trevelyan's stitches and putting fresh bandages over them.

He runs his gaze over Trevelyan's bare chest when he's done. There's the start of some bruising, but nothing else that looks worrisome.

Carol pauses so Christopher can ask, "Anything else?"

Trevelyan picks up his shirt and shrugs into it. "Nothing else that needs attention. James's turn."

Christopher washes his hands while they trade places. When he turns back, Bond and Trevelyan have switched places and Bond's shirt is off.

Bond has a cut across his eyebrow and a scrape on his forearm that could have been adequately treated with his sleeve rolled up.

Christopher starts by cleaning the cut over Bond's eyebrow. "Was taking off your shirt really necessary?"

"I assumed you'd want to be thorough," Bond says.

"And I was promised a show," Trevelyan adds. "His hands are lovely."

"Aren't they?" Bond agrees. "Too bad they don't feel lovely at the moment."

The cut above Bond's eye is relatively shallow. Christopher closes it with a butterfly bandage.

"If you're quite finished harassing your quartermaster," Carol says.

Bond gives her a smirking sort of smile. "By all means, carry on."

They get through the rest of the report, if not without a bit of flexing and posing on Bond's part.

"That's all we need," Carol says. "Christopher, can you handle them?"

"He's more than welcome to handle us," Trevelyan says.

Christopher ignores that and says, "I've got it," to Carol.

"Yell if you need me," Carol says on her way out the door. "I'll be here for a bit longer."

"Any other injuries?" Christopher asks Bond after he's attended to the visible ones.

"No," Bond says, his hands at his waistband, "but if you'd like to check to be sure."

Christopher gives him a quelling glance and strips off his gloves. "That won't be necessary, 007." He bins the gloves and washes his hands. "You can put your shirt on."

"What a pity," Trevelyan drawls.

Christopher refrains from laughing; he suspects that's one of the most important skills for a quartermaster. "I trust you two can find your own way home."

"We can," Bond says, buttoning up his shirt. "Care to join us?"

"Goodnight, 007, 006," Christopher says pointedly.

They leave, but not without parting suggestive smiles on their way out.

*

Bond has a habit of not checking in. Christopher keeps the monitoring program for his tracker up on a screen at all times and uses both human and technical pattern recognition to watch for any problems, so he's not concerned when it's been nearly seventy-two hours without contact.

"James is in trouble."

Christopher looks up at Trevelyan, who has appeared next to his workstation without Christopher noticing his approach. He reflexively glances at the monitor showing Bond's tracker.

"There's nothing unusual with his tracker." Christopher turns his attention to Trevelyan. A Double Oh's instincts are nothing to be disregarded. "What makes you think something's wrong?"

"He hasn't texted me back." Trevelyan holds up a hand. "He's not undercover, it's been over twenty-four hours, and we were in the middle of a conversation he would have continued if he could. Something's wrong."

Christopher can think of a dozen likely explanations that have nothing to do with Bond being in trouble, but he holds them back and pulls up the tracking program instead. A Double Oh's instincts are worth double-checking.

Two minutes of digging into it and Christopher swears. "That's not Bond's signal. Someone is mimicking it so we'll think he's still where he's supposed to be."

"Get me on a plane," Trevelyan says.

Christopher grabs for his arm. "Let me find him first." He glances around to see who he can delegate to. "Raj, get Carol, then get me Bond's last known footage. Anna, bring up everything near where Bond's tracker says he was." He glances at Trevelyan for a time.

"Twenty-eight hours ago." Trevelyan folds his arms over his chest, but stays put.

Christopher turns to his screen. If he can backtrack the mimicked signal, maybe he can get a read on the real one.

He's in the middle of it when Carol strides into the office with a clacking of her heels. "Alec, report."

"James is missing."

"We're trying to get you a location," Christopher says.

"Right," Carol says. "Alec, you can't do anything until we know where he is." Carol retreats to an unused workstation, and Christopher can hear her on the phone with her team in the background while he cuts through the intrusion in his code.

"I've got footage," Anna says. She puts it up on one of the large screens.

Christopher stops what he's doing to watch the footage of a pair of men dragging an unconscious Bond into a car. "Follow them," he says to Anna. "Raj, find out who they are."

A few more minutes, and Christopher finishes backtracking into the other system. First priority is finding Bond's real signal. Second priority is dealing with their system.

Once Christopher has Bond's signal, he leaves the connection to the other system open and pulls the tracking program up onto one of the large screens. "He's here, in London."

Carol has an array of items laid out on a table, and she selects from them to outfit Trevelyan. Christopher adds a second earpiece.

"I know you hate them," he says as Trevelyan stows a variety of weapons, "but get one into Bond so I can talk to both of you."

"We'll be watching," Carol says as Trevelyan strides out of the room. She patches Christopher into her frequency so he can be part of their conversation.

Christopher mutes his end of the connection. "Anna, I want to know how they got here. Freddie, get me every CCTV camera within a two-kilometer radius of Bond's location. Raj, anything yet?"

"They're not in our database," Raj says. "Widening the search."

No one needs him actively involved at the moment, so Christopher goes poking through the other system while he half-listens to Carol directing Trevelyan to where Bond is being held. He copies as much as he can; they look to be independent contractors, which means it's unlikely to cause a diplomatic crisis if they ever figure out MI6 was in their system. Not that Christopher will let it get to that. There's enough there that he runs a data dump of the most likely useful information; he'll grab more if he has time.

"I've got IDs." Raj throws a pair of French passport records up on one of the big screens. "Still looking for other aliases and affiliations."

They're henchmen, not masterminds, and that combined with the nationality has Christopher following a hunch into French intelligence databases. He puts the results of his search onto a large screen.

Christopher unmutes his comm to relay the information to his team and Trevelyan all at once. "Known drug traffickers, suspected of being involved in human trafficking as well. Given the area they work in and their interest in Bond, they may be connected to Moreau. The French have nothing on Moreau, so there's no way to be sure."

"Do we have anything on Moreau?" Trevelyan asks.

"Frustratingly little," Christopher says. "He could think we're a threat and be using Bond to find out what he can about our operations, or he could be unhappy that Bond slept with his wife." He mutes his comm.

Christopher fires off an email to Tanner asking if their undercover agent has learned anything useful about Moreau, and flags it as relating to an active situation.

When Trevelyan gets within the two-kilometer radius of Bond's location, Christopher clears all other information to smaller screens and takes over sequencing the CCTV data on the main screens so they can keep Trevelyan in sight.

"We don't have visuals beyond the next two blocks," Carol tells Trevelyan. "Be smart about this, Alec."

"When has that ever gotten me anywhere?" Trevelyan says. Through the sound of his movements through the earpiece and the tracking program data on the screen, they can see that he's slowing down. "Going silent."

"Acknowledged," Carol says.

They watch to the limit of their CCTV view, and then listen as Trevelyan quietly and efficiently takes out one, two, three guards.

"There are cameras," Trevelyan says just loudly enough for the comms to pick up.

Carol and Christopher exchange a glance.

"Give us ninety seconds," Carol says while Christopher's fingers fly across his keyboard.

He digs into the other system, and knowing what he's looking for makes it easy to find their camera network. He puts the images up on the large screens, replacing the CCTV footage.

"We have visuals," Carol says. She walks Trevelyan through getting into the building and disabling the first of the guards, then the second.

"Bond is in the center of the room," Carol says when Trevelyan reaches the door to where Bond is being held. "Two with him, one inside the door with a gun on Bond, the other pacing around him. No weapon in his hands, but assume he's armed."

Their only acknowledgement is the way Trevelyan pushes through the door and shoots both the henchmen in so swift a series of movements that neither of them is able to adequately react.

"You're clear," Carol says when nothing else in their view make sudden moves. "Move fast. The building isn't."

Christopher watches as Trevelyan gets Bond's right hand untied and puts something in it.

"Your quartermaster insisted."

Bond puts on the comm. "Q."

Christopher unmutes his comm. "007." He watches Trevelyan put a gun in Bond's hand before untying him the rest of the way. "If you missed being tied up so badly, surely you could have asked 006 to do it for you."

The video quality is good enough to see Bond's smirk as he shakes off the last of the ropes. "What makes you think that's something we do?"

"You're Double Ohs," Christopher says. "You're all sexually adventurous adrenaline junkies. Is that what got you into this, or did they know we've been investigating them?"

Bond raises his eyebrows. "I didn't know we were. They didn't say much. I did gather that they're French." His eyes narrow. "Moreau?"

"Unconfirmed," Christopher says, "but likely." He glances at Carol for her agreement before he says, "See what you can find out. Don't get yourself killed."

"That goes for both of you," Carol adds.

Bond and Trevelyan make their way through the building with Carol and Christopher's assistance. They kill four guards, hold one at gunpoint and fruitlessly ask questions until the man tries to fight them, and disable one who they leave for the cleanup team to bring back to MI6.

Christopher and Carol's teams keep a close eye on Bond and Trevelyan as they make their way back to headquarters, and Christopher watches their progress through the building so he's not surprised when Bond appears at his shoulder and asks, "Are you sending me after Moreau? I'll need a better weapon." He reaches past Christopher, standing far too close, and puts his gun on the desk.

"Do I hear you impugning my weapons?" Carol asks.

"Of course not." Bond turns his flirtatious smile on her. "Only that this one isn't suited to my needs." The smile gets turned on Christopher again.

Christopher pushes Bond back with a casual twist of his shoulders. "You're not going after anyone yet. "We're not sure it's Moreau." He holds up a hand. "And Lina Moreau can identify you. You're not going after him until we know more." He looks around at his team and considers the unread email from Tanner in his inbox. "Twenty-four hours at least."

"How will I occupy myself until then?" Bond says.

"I'm sure you'll find something." Christopher looks past him at Trevelyan. "Perhaps 006 can assist you in that."

Bond's flirtatious smile shades into an amused smirk. "I'll await your call."

"Don't hold your breath," Christopher says, turning away to his screens before he lets himself smile.

*

Between what Christopher and his team manage to dig up and, more usefully, what the agent inside Moreau's organization has found, M makes the call to let Bond and Trevelyan go after Moreau.

"This may require them to extract our agent as well," M says.

"We'll send along extra weaponry and an earpiece," Christopher says.

As the senior quartermaster of the two of them, Carol takes the lead on the operation. Christopher and his team are still responsible for outfitting Bond.

"Random killing machine?" Bond asks when Christopher hands over both a Walther with palm-print encoding and one without.

"For our other agent, in case extraction becomes necessary."

"This too?" Bond holds up the extra earpiece.

"Yes," Christopher says. "I'd rather not play telephone in a tight situation."

"Oh, I'm sure there are more interesting games to play in a tight situation."

Christopher ignores Bond's smirk. "Trevelyan will also have extra supplies. Do try not to lose them all."

He also ignores the deepening of Bond's smirk, and sends him off with Trevelyan instead.

Christopher's team moves into the secondary set of desks in Carol's command center to cover the op. It's pretty casual, people going in and out, transit tracking and associated camera views up on the screens, until Bond and Trevelyan reach Marseille. Christopher and Carol's teams settle in then, and they keep as close an eye on Bond and Trevelyan as they can.

"We've got you on the outside cameras," Carol says as Bond and Trevelyan, in a rented Mercedes, pull up to Moreau's estate. "Once you're inside, it's your audio only."

"Understood," Trevelyan says.

From their view of the outside cameras, Christopher and Carol watch Bond and Trevelyan approach the house. They take down a pair of guards quietly enough not to rouse anyone else. Moreau's security has holes; once they're past the guards, the servant who opens the door lets them in.

Both Bond and Trevelyan have left their earpieces on, meaning that Christopher, Carol, and their teams can hear their conversations as they bluff their way past the servant.

The servant shows Moreau into the room Bond and Trevelyan have been left in.

"Mr. Moreau," Bond says. "I've met your wife."

"Lovely opening," Christopher mutters.

His pessimism is rewarded; there are a series of sounds over the comms that are recognizable as a fight, and then there's shouting and gunshots, and Christopher resists the urge to grip the edge of his desk while he can do nothing but listen.

"Moreau's down," Trevelyan says into the comms.

Bond says, "Incoming," perfectly calmly, and then there's more shouting and gunshots.

Trevelyan says, "Why should we trust you?"

The person who answers him is too far away to be picked up by his mic, but then the gunshots stop.

Christopher, Carol, and their teams are silent as they listen to what could be movement. It's a tense few minutes.

"We have the agent," Bond says.

"Putting him on comms," Trevelyan says. "Should be safe, assuming he can get us out of here and he is who he say he is." He sounds perfectly cheerful about the possibility that the assumption is wrong. "Otherwise we'll have to go dark."

"I can, and I am," the agent says.

Christopher's heart stops beating. But there's no time for that, so he unmutes his connection and says, "He is."

"Christopher," Simon says, sounding terribly pleased for a man in an intensely dangerous situation. "You're a quartermaster."

"Yes," Christopher says. "Can you get them out of there?"

"Yes, this way."

Christopher mutes his connection, and they listen to Simon lead Bond and Trevelyan through what he explains in a low voice is a secret entrance into the house.

Then there's a scream, and then crying very close to a microphone and a girl saying in French-accented English, "George, are you leaving? Please take me with you. Please! They'll hurt me if Papa dies, you know they will, and he'll make me marry one of them if he doesn't. Please!"

"Sophie Moreau," Simon says. "We should bring her in. She's only fourteen."

"Carol? Q?" Bond asks.

Carol says, "Ninety seconds," into the comms while Christopher calls Tanner and puts him on speaker. Carol gives Tanner a quick rundown of the situation.

"Your opinion?" Tanner asks them.

Carol looks at Christopher to go first; he says, "I'm not authorized to make decisions based on information from Simon," more to let her know than because Tanner needs the reminder.

"Any of it could be dangerous," Carol says, "but I trust James and Alec to handle a fourteen-year-old girl."

"Agreed," Tanner says. "We'll have someone meet them at Heathrow and take the girl into custody."

Christopher hangs up the phone and Carol switches over to the comms.

"Bring her in."

"Copy," Trevelyan says.

"You're coming with us," Simon says gently. "You need to stop crying and be quiet now so we don't get caught."

They move, and things are quiet until there's a single gunshot.

"Guard at the exit," Bond says. "He's down. Alec is hot-wiring a car."

The exit isn't covered by Moreau's surveillance network; Christopher can't see them anywhere on his cameras.

Christopher clicks onto the comms to say, "Let me know when you're in CCTV range."

"Miss seeing me already?" Bond asks.

"We'll need the evidence when you blow up something unnecessary," Christopher says dryly.

There's a stifled laugh Christopher identifies as Simon's.

Christopher, Carol, and their teams breathe easier once they get eyes on the car. Not a strictly legal use of the French CCTV network, but a useful one. The first time Christopher has seen a current image of Simon in eighteen months, and it's a grainy look at him through a car window.

"We've got visual," Carol says. "Keep your eyes open for Moreau's people."

"The chaos should keep them occupied," Simon says. "They're rather bad at running the place without Moreau."

They make it to the airport, and onto a plane, and Christopher lets out a relieved exhale when they cross the border into UK airspace.

The comms stay up until Bond, Trevelyan, and Simon are in the building. Bond and Trevelyan come strolling into Carol's command center perfectly calm and collected.

Bond opens his hand and drops a pair of comms on the desk next to Christopher. He follows it up with a pair of weapons, his Walther and the one Christopher sent along for the agent he didn't know was Simon.

Christopher looks at the equipment, and then at Bond with a not wholly feigned look of surprise. "You've returned all your equipment."

"And in working order." Bond crowds closer to him. "Do I get a prize?"

"The satisfaction of a job well done," Christopher says. "Carol's leading the debrief."

Bond winks at him before he turns around to submit to Carol's questioning.

Christopher listens to the debrief, signs off on it, and takes his tech and remaining team members back to their own command center.

He lingers in his office beyond what is strictly necessary to do his job.

He looks up at the footsteps approaching his door, and tries not to be too disappointed when they belong to Bond and Trevelyan.

"I do see what you like about him," Trevelyan says.

"It's not hard to miss," Bond says.

They're watching Christopher with predatory looks. He decides he's not needed for the conversation and turns to the coding he's toying with.

They fall silent with enough time that Christopher can hear the single set of footsteps before Simon comes into his office.

Simon smiles at him. "Christopher."

Christopher smiles back. "Simon. Welcome back."

"Thank you." Simon shoots a look at Bond and Trevelyan. "Are we being professional for the children?"

"It seemed prudent," Christopher says.

Simon hmms. "Double Ohs are all oversexed adrenaline junkies. I hardly think they'll mind if we're less than professional."

It's not the strongest argument, but staying behind his desk is torture. Christopher steps around it, and right into Simon's arms. They're the same height, the perfect height for kissing, and they do, a long, soft relearning of each other's mouths.

"Friend of yours, Q?" Bond asks.

Christopher and Simon part.

"My husband," Christopher says. It is perhaps the one and only time he's seen surprise on Bond's face.

"I hope you're not the jealous type," Trevelyan says conversationally to Simon. "James and I have been shamelessly flirting with your husband for months."

"No need," Simon says. "Christopher is the loyal type."

Bond looks between them. "I think I'm going to like you. We were headed for a late dinner. Care to join us?"

"I've been undercover for eighteen months," Simon says. "The only place I'm going right now is home to shag my husband."

Bond and Trevelyan give them matching smirks.

Christopher goes around his desk to lock his computers. "You had to say that to them."

"Oversexed adrenaline junkies," Simon says. "I knew they'd appreciate it."

Christopher doesn't laugh, but there's a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. He ushers Bond and Trevelyan out of his office and locks it behind him.

"Good night, Agents. I won't be in tomorrow. Talk to Raj if you need anything."

"Have a good evening," Bond says, his voice dripping with innuendo.

Christopher ignores it the way he ignores all of Bond's flirting and takes his husband home.


End file.
